


from a fire burning long ago

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Coming Out, F/F, First Kiss, Fix-It, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 08:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20061052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: Jean returns to the school, shaken and confused but alive, and somehow Ororo understands exactly how she's feelingOR,in which there are several confessions, even more kisses, and the beginning of a road trip





	from a fire burning long ago

**Author's Note:**

> title from Level Up by Vienna Teng which also contains the highly appropriate lyrics "come out, and level up" because that sure is what Jean's doing

Jean was trying, she really was, to keep everyone else’s thoughts to themselves, but she still sensed Ororo’s presence hovering in her doorway rather than saw her. Ororo knocked anyway, soft and hesitant, as she said, “Do you mind if I come in?”

Jean took a long, shaky breath and patted the bedspread beside her, still not looking up, her mind shut tightly enough that she couldn’t tell why Ororo was here, how she was feeling, too scared of what she might see on Ororo’s face to look, not sure if she was most afraid of anger or disgust or pity. “Sure,” she said, “have a seat.”

“Thanks,” Ororo said, and the mattress dipped as she sat on it, so that her knee brushed accidentally against Jean’s, and Jean shrunk away from the contact. “I just wanted to see how you were doing after everything,” she said. “I’ve been worried about you. I mean, we’ve all been worried about you, of course. We’re your friends. Me and Kurt and Jubilee and,” her voice dropped, became even more hesitant and gentle, “Scott, too.”

“I’m sure,” she said, more bitterly than she expected. “Sorry, it’s just…”

“I understand,” Ororo said, and Jean finally looked up and met her eyes, saw neither anger nor disgust nor pity in them, only something so tender and kind that she almost started crying again. She’d been doing a lot of crying lately, mostly when no one else was around to see her, which was almost always, since most of the other students were happy to avoid her, and the teachers had more important things to worry about, like repairing the damage she’d done to their relationship with the government. It wasn’t fair, and whenever she thought about it she felt the power inside her flaring up with red-hot anger. She was the one who had done wrong, the one who deserved to face consequences for what she’d done—though the power inside her gave a shudder that felt like disapproval—and for every mutant across the country to suffer for her loss of control was, if not surprising, still the kind of injustice that someone should be doing something about. She hated watching Raven and Hank grow more and more stressed each time they hung up the phone with some government official, or more often, get hung up on, she hated seeing the dark circles under their eyes, the way they looked out across their students with fear rather than pride, and she hated knowing it was her fault. It wasn’t, shouldn’t be, her fault. But almost more than that, she hated overhearing Charles on the phone with those same officials, the ones who wouldn’t talk to Raven or Hank because they were _too mutant_, the ones who wanted the school shut and her dead, or worse. She hated the way he talked to them, like he was apologizing for who he was, who they all were, like he would be less inconvenient to them if he only knew how. She knew he wanted to keep them all safe, but he’d wanted to keep her safe too, and had only hurt her and everyone around her even more in the process. She understood, and she thought maybe someday she might consider forgiving him, if only so that she could walk through the home he’d built for her without being strangled by her rage, but she could never, ever accept it.

Ororo had apparently taken her silence, lost in thoughts that were her own for once, for disagreement, because she said, “I know this was a while ago, but when I was with Apocalypse…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I don’t know how to say this, I still don’t like to talk about. I thought I was doing the right thing, a necessary thing. I had never felt so powerful, or so much like myself.” She smiled briefly, lighting up her face, and it faded away all too quickly. “And then I realized what we… what I had done. And I have regretted it ever since, all that destruction, how easily I allowed myself to be led astray. But I can’t regret knowing how it felt to shine.”

There were tears glittering in her eyes by the time she finished speaking, and Jean realized that there were tears running down her own cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said, choking the words out. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I get it,” Ororo said, pulling her into hug, and Jean all but collapsed into her arms, sobbing, closing her eyes tightly and pressing her face into the crook of Ororo’s neck. It had been so long since touching anyone had been this uncomplicated, since she had felt so safe with someone else’s arms around her, and had been able to accept the comfort without pulling away. She hadn’t even known if she was allowed to hug Raven, when she’d woken up, and she’d run away before she had a chance to find out that she wasn’t, and all of her friends had been distant since she’d come back. And Scott… Well, touching Scott had never been uncomplicated, but especially not since she’d started feeling different. Since she’d started feeling like she wanted something _more_.

“I don’t,” said Jean. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I thought it was just whatever this force is, but it’s not just my powers that are different, or even my memories.” She sniffled loudly, wiped her eyes. “I’ve just been thinking more about who I am, I guess, and it doesn’t really feel like I’ve changed, exactly, it’s more like I’m finally figuring who I’ve been all along, if that makes any sense?”

“It does,” Ororo said. She patted Jean’s shoulder, comfortingly, a little awkwardly, and said, “Is that what happened to what you had with Scott?”

Jean nodded, suddenly afraid that if she tried to speak she would be choked, either by the tears or by the truth. She really had tried, after she returned, to rekindle whatever had been between them, but kissing him just made her feel hollow inside and talking to him made her feel like they were having entirely different conversations, talking past each other as if they were talking to someone else and just happened to be in the same room. She didn’t know how he felt about it being over, about her pushing her way out of his arms and only saying, “I can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry.” She’d covered her face in her hands, any hint of his thoughts blocked out by the swirling feelings inside her, and he didn’t say anything as he left the room except, “I’m sorry too.” She hadn't so much as looked at him ever since.

“Oh, Jean,” said Ororo softly, and once again Jean found that she couldn’t look her in the eyes, so instead she stared at their knees, angled towards each other with barely the space of a breath between them, Ororo’s hand open palm-up resting on one thigh, like an olive branch, like an invitation. So Jean took it, and for one mortifying second she thought she had misread Ororo’s intentions until Ororo’s fingers closed around her own, and fresh tears welled up in her eyes at the tenderness of it. The power inside her flared up, shivering with what felt like encouragement, approval.

“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be,” she said. “I think I know who I want to be but I’m so afraid. What I’m wrong? What if this isn’t real, and it’s just my powers and my mind and I’m just confused. Was I wrong to break up with Scott? What if that’s what dating is supposed to be like and I just want too much? But it’s not really too much, is it? It’s just something different but somehow it feels like so much more.”

“You sound like you have plenty figured out,” Ororo said with a knowing smile, squeezing Jean’s hand reassuringly. “But I know it can be difficult to say it out loud. And trust me, if you’re thinking about it this much, it’s because there’s something to think about.”

“But how do you know that?” Jean said. “How do I know?”

Ororo looked at her, held her gaze for a long moment, and slowly, gently, placed her hand on Jean’s cheek and then leaned in to kiss her. Their lips only brushed for the briefest instant but it was enough. Kissing Scott had been fine, but that was all it ever was. Tolerable if boring at best, and awkward and uncomfortable at worst.

Sure, the mechanics of it were the same, the soft mash of lips and wetness of tongues and scrape of teeth, but way it made her feel, warm and shivering and _right_, like falling and flying and burning, was new entirely, and when Ororo pulled away, eyebrows raised, waiting expectantly as if she’d been the one to ask a question, and Jean answered both Ororo’s question and her own, pulling her in for another kiss.

“What does this mean?” Jean said, when they finally broke apart, breathless and dizzy. Ororo’s fingers were still tangled with hers.

“I think that’s pretty clear by now,” Ororo said. "Or would you like to kiss me again?"

“No, I meant, what does it mean for us?” Jean said, already trying to find a way to overthink this, because there were always too many racing thoughts in her head even without everyone else’s finding their way in.

“It means we can figure out what comes next together,” said Ororo, and Jean gripped her hand tighter.

“I don’t know if I want to stay here,” she said, a whisper, barely a breath, like this was as great a confession as liking girls. And in a way it was. This was her home, the only home she’d known for as long as she could remember, or as good as, and it was supposed to be the only place for her to feel safe. Maybe Erik’s island could have been, if the blood on her shirt and her hands and her soul been anyone but Raven’s, maybe he would have helped her understand and given her a home. But this wasn’t home anymore either, not even if Charles left, as he said he might, as Raven said he should. She’d overheard their argument, their raised voices at night when they thought no one else was around but she had taken to wandering the hallways at night when she couldn’t sleep, because it was the only time she could bear to leave her room. She’d heard it in her ears, not her mind, but it didn’t make her feel any less guilty.

“Me neither,” said Ororo, and Jean stared at her, open-mouthed at how easily the words left her lips. “And neither does Raven. She thinks she could be doing more good out there, in the world, where there are mutants who need the kind of help that's more direct than anyone can do from here, and I think I could too.” She was gesturing excitedly with the hand that wasn’t holding Jean’s. “And just imagine! She was my childhood hero, and I could go with her, to help her save people.”

“Have you asked her?” Jean said, hardly daring to hope that this could be an option.

“It’s not official yet,” Ororo said. “She said that she wanted to give me a chance to think it through, that there was still good I could do here, but she didn’t really sound like she believed that herself. And I think that if you want to join us, it will be easier to convince her, because between the three of us we could be unstoppable.” There were sparks in her eyes, only metaphorical ones, though the hair on her arms was standing on end like she’d just gotten a shock, the way it did when she got excited, and Jean could feel the hum of electricity in their clasped hands.

“There’s something I want to do first,” said Jean. “Well, even before that I have to have a real conversation with Scott, and then I have to ask him where his brother lives. I suppose Raven could tell me, but if I have to talk to Scott anyway…” She shrugged, not sure how to express that she knew their relationship had been irrevocably shattered, but she still hoped she could sand down the broken edges into a stronger friendship, built on the mutual respect and kindness that had always been between them, instead of on expectations that she hadn’t understood but tried to twist herself to fill all the same.

“Alex?” Ororo said. “I thought he was dead.”

“Legally, he is,” said Jean. “But he survived the explosion, just barely, and he and his husband live off the grid somewhere. Scott gets letters, sometimes, even goes to visit on holidays, and their house is another safe place, I think. Not as big as here, not as permanent. But sometimes students find their way there first, before coming here.” Scott had told her, to explain where he went during some holidays, to apologize for leaving her alone. But she hadn’t felt so alone here yet, not with Ororo and Jubilee and Kurt and the younger students who used to treat her like an older sister, before their wide eyes and incessant questions had been replaced by turned backs and a chorus of nasty whispers. “I think talking to him might help me, actually. I think he might be someone who understands what it’s like, to be afraid of your powers, to accidentally hurt someone you care about. I just… I need to know how to live with this.” She felt tears threatening to choke her again, felt the force inside her shift uncomfortably at the reminder of what she’d done to Raven, and she took a deep breath, focusing on Ororo’s voice.

“Makes sense,” Ororo said, rubbing her thumb over Jean’s comfortingly, waiting until Jean had collected herself, and then: “Husband?”

“Armando, he was part of the professor’s original class along with Raven and Hank and all of them…”

“Armando Muñoz?” Ororo said. “No way! He’s alive too?”

“You know about him?”

“Are you kidding me?” Ororo said. “I used to love hearing about him when I was growing up. I spent so long looking for this one specific poster of the original team just because it was one of the only only that showed him at all. I still had the one with Mystique though, which wasn’t bad either.”

“Do you want to come with me?” Jean said. “If we stop there on our way to… wherever we’re going.”

“Anywhere we’re needed,” Ororo said, “and that’s everywhere. And is that even a question? You just told me that one of my childhood heroes is still alive, and he’s gay, and I’m supposed to pass up an opportunity to meet him?”

Ororo’s grin was infectious, and Jean could hardly even remember why she’d been so upset before Ororo had found her. “Should we go talk to Raven and Scott now? Wait, no. Scott has a class now. And I saw Raven leave for groceries a few minutes before you came in, so she can’t possibly be back yet.”

“So what you’re saying,” Ororo said, reaching out and tucking a stray piece of hair behind Jean’s ear and letting it rest lightly on her shoulder, “is that we have some time to fill while we wait.”

“Yes,” Jean said, “and if you want I have some ideas for how we can pass that time.”

“Tell me more,” Ororo said, her hand drifting down Jean’s back as Jean leaned in to kiss her again.

* * *

Jean was driving, had been the entire time, because it gave her something real to focus on, to feel in control instead of spiraling out into old memories, the wheel solid beneath her hands and the road stretched out ahead, the force inside her humming steadily along with the engine. There was no music playing, only the rush of the wind and the tires, Raven’s eyes comforting in the rear view mirror—she’d forgiven Jean as soon as she’d gathered the courage to ask for forgiveness, and agreed to Jean and Ororo accompanying her almost as easily—and her girlfriend—it still gave her such a thrill even to think it—asleep with her head against the window in the front passenger seat, her jacket bunched up beneath her head and her legs curled up on the seat. It would be dangerous, and anything could happen, but Jean was more sure about this than she had been about anything before, and as she looked back toward the road she felt as though her heart had wings, ready to ignite.

**Author's Note:**

> there was. originally gonna be a whole other scene where they actually go to Alex and Darwin's and Jean talks to them abt how to trust herself and her powers after hurting someone she cared about and it was gonna be really nice and soft and forgiving and the advice she got would be a very thinly veiled metaphor for accepting yourself for being gay bc this is x-men we're talking abt and honestly? the phoenix force is a metaphor for lesbianism and in this essay I did  
but I got too busy and ran out of momentum to actually write the scene so just. however u imagine that conversation going, that's how it went. alex and armando held hands the entire time. someone made tea. jean cried again and it was cathartic
> 
> also I am Aware that same-sex marriage was not legal in the US in the 90s when this takes places however people in committed longterm relationships can and do refer to their partners as spouses regardless of whether or not they legally can be, they're husbands no matter what the law has to say about it


End file.
